No one could ever be as stupid and gullible as the people who "misread" Chancy in this book. I had hoped it would be deeper than the movie, or that the writing would be colorful enough to make up for the plot, but alas. Disappointing.

Dustin Hoffman is awesome as a narrator. His beautiful voice and talent are wasted on this novel, but I would not hesitate to listen to some other book narrated by him.

I love history and enjoy reading different books about the past. I like to joke that I have read many books about the outcome at Gettysburg, but no matter how many I read the outcome remains the same! I do find it interesting and fascinating to get different takes and outlooks on the same events.

I loved the remarkable way that the late Jerzy Kosinski tackled compiling a book that could have been much longer into such a short and brief package. He apparently got some advice that I recall from an old English teacher in my past: Write more like Hemmingway and less like Faulkner.

What other book might you compare Being There to and why?

A good comparison that comes to mind for me is the late Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five". Both writers in both books had a knack for tackling difficult subjects within a framework that each created which allowed them to be simple, brief, and direct. Their product emerges strongly and requires deep and thoughtful consideration from the reader/listener.

Have you listened to any of Dustin Hoffman’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Hoffman's performance of this narration is excellent and he is deserving of praise. I have not heard other narrations from Dustin Hoffman and therefore cannot compare this with other performances.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes it was, and I did! Gratefully!

Any additional comments?

I want to thank my friend David from college. He introduced me to this writer then, and I remain appreciative.

Just finished Being There by Jerzy Kosinski. It was like looking at modern art, where the artist is clearly trying to Be Artistic instead of, say, painting (or, in this case, telling a story.) About the only thing I really took away from it was 1) "here's another 60s/70s story I don't enjoy due to needless emphasis on sex," and 2) Kosinski obviously feels that people take away whatever they want to from an exchange instead of what's actually there. Which, while I agree with that, I felt that the message was clumsily presented. I don't understand why this is considered such an important work.

At the core, this is a simple tale of misunderstandings, miscommunications, and mistaken identities. Yet, despite the sparse prose, this story is anything but simple. As in the tradition of all satire, Kosinski delivers a story that for its humorous depictions of naive deceptions actually delivers a sharp, if not deep, cut against our society. What makes this classic satire is how relevant and relatable this story is over 4 decades later.

In sense, this is a story about identity and what makes our identity. In a world where our names define us and anchor us to society, the main character, who goes by Chance, has no real name. He goes by Chance because that is what they call him, and when he meets EE and her husband, he goes by Chauncey Gardiner because that's what they end up calling him. To himself the name is inconsequential. His needs and wants are simple: gardening and television. This simplicity is completely unimaginable to the rest of the characters in the novel and their lack of comprehension on this fact is where most of the deception ends up lying.

In a way, Chance is the perfect innocent. He is the blank Adam who never ate from the Tree of Knowledge and thus knows no other way to be than the gardener that he was raised to be. He tends to his garden and his only true companion is his television, and although he is not completely isolated from other humans, it's a cold interaction that he has with them. The Old Man is the detached and uncaring 'god' of Chance's garden, the maid a distant servant who tends to the physical needs but does nothing to nourish Chance's soul. It is only the brief mention of an old gardener that suggests that Chance ever had anyone spend any type of focused attention on him. And even that interaction was more of a temple priest passing on the sacred duty to his new replacement. There is never any mention of love or warmth that would lead to the growth of the soul and mind. Everyone else simply exists for specific purposes and that is all.

With such stunted growth, Chance makes a perfect mirror. He has no knowledge of the world and, more importantly, he has no knowledge of himself, and thus he can only imitate the behaviors of others and speak honestly of the limited realm of his interests--gardening and television. The interesting twist is that this naivety and ignorance appeals to people who superimpose their own desires and agendas onto Chance. He is a mirror that reflects back only what they want to see--and for that they love him. Chance allows people to indulge in their narcissism by passively accepting whatever labels and categories they assign him.

Although this isn't the greatest of the classics of our time, the scary implications and critiques it makes about our society now, and human nature in general, makes it quite worth the read or listen.

What wonderfully lighthearted and humorous story... I've always loved the Peter Sellers' movie, and this story is every bit as enjoyable... Tongue in cheek and satirically imaginative... The narration is nothing short of exceptional, and Hoffman captures Chauncy's innocence, and sense;)

This is the story of how Chance, a simple person who just wants to tend his garden, becomes viewed very differently by many people. Once the media became involved, Chance is viewed as a sex symbol, a scholar of Russian literature, a brave person who admits he doesn't read the NY Times or any other paper, and a financier. This has all transpired just because Chance is bring himself: a gardener who hasn't left home before now and who cannot read and write; his view of the outside world comes from what he sees on TV.

I would have liked more about his back story; although you can guess as to who his father is, it is never actually stated. I liked the ending; to me, it showed that no matter what happened around him, Chance is still himself: the man who finds peace in his garden.

Everyone should read (or hear) this every 10 years or so. It reminds you how shallow and self-absorbed people can be and how quick, by nature, we write our own opinions onto someone else's simple silence. If only we did not.